cordt looked into the room where fru adelheid sat:

“where is finn?”

“i think he’s in the old room.”

cordt closed the door and walked quickly down the passage. she was sitting by the window and saw him in the square below, where he stood and looked up at the house. then he walked away, in such a manner that she could see that he had no object for his walk.

the servant came and lit the candles. fru adelheid sat down by the fireplace with her hands in her lap and listened for a sound in the quiet house.

soon after, cordt came home.

she heard his voice in the passage.[303] then he went into his own room ... now he was outside again. she understood that he was on his way to finn; but the next moment he came in to where she was sitting and sat down at a distance from her:

“have you been up to him to-day, adelheid?”

“no.”

cordt moved restlessly in his chair, rose to go and sat down again. fru adelheid struggled with herself not to go over to him and take his hand and talk to him. then he said:

“he has been so odd, lately. brighter than usual, but more absent, nevertheless. he is not shamming, but still he is not himself.”

cordt went on talking about it, without looking at her and not so much in order to tell it to her as because he could not keep silent. she saw this exactly and[304] turned away her face and cried quietly. then he asked:

“haven’t you noticed it?”

“i think he is much as usual.”

cordt rose and crossed the room. he stood for a time by the chimney, where she sat, and stared into the fire. she looked up at him with bright, moist eyes. then he went over and sat where he had been sitting before and it was silent in the room.

“i wonder, oughtn’t you to go up to him, adelheid?”

he could not hear her reply and looked across at her. she had stood up and was coming towards him. he saw that she was very pale and that she was crying, but did not think about it and forgot it again at once.

then she sat by him ... so close that her white gown lay over his feet. she crossed her hands in her lap and parted[305] them again and did not look at him while she spoke:

“cordt....” she said.

and, when she had said that, she began to tremble and pressed her hands together.

“yes?”

“you ought to go up to him, cordt.”

he was silent for a moment. then he bent closer to her and lowered his voice, as though there were some one in the room who could hear what he was saying and must not:

“i dare not. i have frightened him. he starts when he sees me ... he stands outside my door and collects his courage when he comes to me to say good-morning. i will go quite away from him for a little while ... go for a journey, i think, until he becomes more tranquil.”

she looked at him and pictured him roaming round the world so that finn might recover his tranquillity. she saw[306] him strolling in distant towns, where life flowed on around him, alone, knowing no peace, ever thinking of his son ... longing for the day when he could come home, dreading how he would find him then.

fru adelheid slipped from her chair and lay on the floor before him, with her cheek against his hand and her eyes streaming with tears.

cordt did not see. he stared into the room across her head, with the strained, racked look which he now always wore when he was alone:

“he does not like our parties, adelheid,” he said, meditatively. “we only did him harm.”

“yes.”

“but, if you would go up to him, adelheid ... very quietly ... and sit with him a little, so that he could not give way to his thoughts. or help him, so that his[307] thoughts could find utterance. you two always got on well together, you know, and he was glad to see you whenever you came.”

“he is no longer glad to see me, cordt.”

he looked at her in surprise and encountered her moist glance.

“if i went up now, cordt ... i could not sit with finn as i used to. for i am no longer the same.”

“ah, well!” was all he said.

he spoke calmly and indifferently, as though he had had no particular faith in his remedy and must look round for something else.

“cordt!...”

it was a scream.

he started. and, as if he had now first seen that she was kneeling before him, he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.

[308]he crossed the room and then came back and stood and looked at her with a sense of dislike that increased every minute. she crept to the chair from which he had risen and laid her head on it. she closed her eyes before his glance and wept silently and without stopping.

“you...?” he said slowly.

she received the blow which the word gave her without breathing a sound. once she opened her eyes and immediately closed them again. pale and still she lay before his feet.

then his eyes blazed with anger and scorn:

“what a number of years have passed since we two first met, fru adelheid ... what a number of miserable years!”

“yes,” she said and raised her head for a moment and laid it on the chair again.

“you went away ... in search of your[309] red happiness. you were not content with your husband, whom you loved and who loved you ... you must have all men on their knees before your beauty ... you must needs see the desire in their eyes and their unchaste hands cramped because they dared not lay them upon cordt’s wife.”

“yes,” she said.

“well, did you find the lover who bound your will to his foot? and did he spurn you when he had seen to the depths of your charming eyes? or did you leave him of your own accord ... and go farther out into the world ... in search of that which was greater still and redder?”

“i had no lover,” she said, in a low voice.

he tossed back the hair from his forehead and clenched his fists:

“no,” he said. “you did not. that is your disgrace and your judgment.”

[310]“cordt ... cordt ... suppose i had had....”

“yes ... if you had had a lover and were here to-day, then i should take your hand and lead you to our son and say to him, ‘here is your mother, who has been unhappy. she loved your father and her love died when the man came who was more to her than he. she has not known a really happy day in all these years, because her fate was too strong for her. now she has come to ask for your affection and needs it.’”

he crossed the room and then came and stood by her again:

“get up, adelheid.”

she rose from the floor and sat down in her chair again, with her white hands crossed in her lap, silently and quietly. he looked at her and it was as though her humble obedience added to his anger:

“where did you go on the day when you[311] broke the bonds of your marriage, because the air in the old room was too pure for you and too strong? where have you been since?”

“i went to god.”

cordt laughed:

“show me your god.”

he bent over and looked her in the face:

“i don’t believe in your god,” he said.

she did not take her eyes from his and stretched out her trembling hands to him and her red mouth quivered with weeping:

“then i don’t believe in him either, cordt.”

he turned away from her. quietly she bowed her head, her tears fell upon her hands, she listened and moaned under the blows which she had received and longed for more.

[312]but cordt sat at the window and looked out where the rain came pouring down and the flame of the lamps flickered in the wind. his anger was over. he could not remember what they had been talking of. his thoughts were where they always were and all the rest was nothing.

then he suddenly stood by her again and struck his hand on his temples and looked at her with fear in his eyes:

“adelheid ... do you think finn won’t come to us at all to-night?”

she understood that it was too late ... irremediably, hopelessly too late. she would never be able to tell him what was burning in her soul. he would never know that she did not come, because she was weary and because she was afraid, but that she had honestly wiped out the bad years of her life and stood again as he would have had her the time ... the time he wanted to have her thus.

[313]“he will come and say good-night,” she said calmly.

fru adelheid raised her folded hands to her mouth.

things could not remain thus for ever. but she could wait. she could go barefoot over the stones, if only once she reached a place in his house where she could stay. there must be a road somewhere that led to him.

and the evening sped on.

she sat beside him again and held his hand in hers, happy that he allowed her to keep it. she wanted to push his hair off his forehead, where the wrinkles lay so sharply marked, but did not. she wanted to put her hands on his tired eyes, but dared not.

they talked of finn and she talked softly and soothingly to him as to a child, happy to be going the way he wanted.[314] she found such gentle words and such impressive ones ... she found her smile again and looked at him and met his smile, which came stealing to his face like a sun-gleam and vanished again at once.

he heard but little of what she said. but the sound of her voice did him good. he heard it and the rain, which beat against the panes, and it grew warm and peaceful around him.

his fears, which had aroused and spied and driven his every thought and turned and weighed his every doubt, slumbered in this quiet hour. he sat there like an old man who has suffered so much that his faculties have been blunted to pain and who takes his solace as it comes and is thankful.

he looked at her as he used to look at his mother when he was young and unhappy. he thought of her as of a young girl who knew the old man so little and[315] owed him nothing, but went to his chair and laid her roses in his hand, so that things might be a little pleasanter for him.

and once he moved uneasily in his chair and looked at her quite differently and said:

“adelheid ... why have i no child but him?”

he said that very quietly and, a little after, he said it again. he said it to himself and not to her. she saw this and wept, because she knew he did not perceive it.

and the evening sped on.

they sat quietly and she was silent and talked again of their son up there in the old room. then she said:

“cordt, let us go up to him!”

“both of us?”

she listened anxiously whether he would[316] say any more ... whether he would reflect who she was and thrust her from him in anger, as he had done before.

but he sat silent and looked at the red glow in the fireplace.

then she rose and put out her hands to him:

“come ... cordt ... let us go. we will sit with him a little and talk to him, quietly and cheerfully, till the shadows disappear. then we will come down here again and they will return, when he is alone. but we will go up every day and fight with them for him and win him.”

he rose heavily and took her hand.

fru adelheid led him through the room like a child. they went through the long passage and up the secret stairs.... she was always a little in front of him. her eyes shone with happiness. the bells rang out in her soul and she held cordt’s[317] hand so fast as though she would never let it go.

they came to the door of the old room and knocked and listened. she looked at him and bent over his hand and kissed it with streaming tears.

then she opened the door briskly and went in with head uplifted and drew him after her.

over by the window sat cordt’s son, in one of the big chairs. he had shot himself.